The great goal of the first phase of the quest of the historical Jesus, then, was to get behind the Christ of faith in order to recover the historical Jesus. The task was envisaged as though it was equivalent to restoring a great masterpiece: the layers of subsequent dogma were like the layers of varnish and dust obscuring the authentic brush strokes of a Michelangelo; only by stripping the layers of dogma away could the original authentic genius of Jesus himself be uncovered. So the war cry arose: